File structure of Fallout 2
Last Updated: 03-Jan-2000 - Happy New Year2K :) This document describes the file structure of Fallout 2 and how to link up your changed files to the game. The file structure is described for a better understanding of what and where to put when linking up your files. Contents 1. File structure of Fallout 2 The file structure of the game is very simple. Fallout 2 consists of several directories. In the installation directory of the game (e.g. C:\Fallout2\), you can find the main executable fallout2.exe and the main confguration file fallout2.cfg. (refer to the fallout2.cfg file format). This configuration file contains, among other things, the paths to the data folders which locate all the data files during the game and the paths to the two patch folders for master.dat & critter.dat. By default, all data and patch folders have the same name, usually C:\Fallout2\data\. All the files outside the data folder (e.g. the ereg\ folder) don't matter to TeamX and thus won't be examined here. 2. Linking up the modified files (patch files) In order to make Fallout notice your modified files from the master.dat' or critter.dat you need to do the following. # Copy the modified files (patch files) to the patch folder for master.dat or critter.dat (refer to the fallout2.cfg file description) keeping the directory structure. The path to the patch folder (the data folder by default) for master.dat is defined by the master_patches variable in the fallout2.cfg file, the usual case is fallout2\data\. # It is necessary to make these files READ_ONLY. Otherwise Fallout will replace you file with the corresponding original file from the corresponding dat-file. (There are other ways to prevent that, but this one is the easiest.) # You can now run Fallout to see your changes working. Sounds complicated? It's actually quite simple. As an example, imagine you have unpacked and modified the master.dat\\art\splash\SPLASH0.rix file and your Fallout2 folder in C:\. To make the game use your file, concatenate the Fallout2\data\ path with the path to your file in master.dat. fallout2\data\ + art\splash\SPLASH0.rix = fallout2\data\art\splash\SPLASH0.rix 4. What to do if it didn't work? There are three possible reasons: either you did something wrong and the game ignored your changes or you just didn't notice the results of your changes or you should compress your patch file using gzip. (you should do that to *.pro files at least.) To do that you have to do the following: if your modified file is called, for instance, 00005678.pro then you should reemove it's extension and type the following in the command line (just run command.com for that, you need to have gzip installed on your system): gzip -9 -n 00005678 After you have done that, rename the compressed file (00005678.gz) back into 00005678.pro and copy it to Fallout2\data\...... blah blah blah. Just don't forget to make it READ ONLY %) 5. That's all. Just run Fallout and check. If you did everything right and sill can't get your changes to work - well, we have got rid of one possible failure reason ;))))))))))) 6. A couple of words about gzip. It's a compressor/decompressor. You can download it from www.gzip.org . (Win9x version). 3. Credits This doc was written by Serge, R&D Group Leader, TeamX Translated by Dr. W95. Found in TeamX's offline docs Category:Documentation